PICTUREBOX

Published by PictureBox.Edited by Dan Nadel.

One of America’s finest abstract painters, Chris Martin (born 1954) explores the fertile areas between sophisticated formalism and the visionary joy of outsider art, making abstract painting look enviably effortless. For this massive volume, Martin and Dan Nadel have assembled a massive compendium of Martin’s drawings from the past 30 years, presenting them chronologically so the reader–viewer can follow the artist’s continual pursuit and discovery of new forms--from sound waves to mushrooms to Tantric arches to the iconic visages of James Brown and Sigmar Polke. For Martin, drawing is an end in itself that also often leads to themes he later reprises and explores in his painting. Taking its design inspiration from the artist’s books of Dieter Roth, Drawings acts as a flipbook of discovery, one that charts Martin’s artistic development over the past three decades.

This is the first comprehensive publication on the work of Chris Martin (born 1954), one of America’s finest contemporary abstract painters. Martin’s enormous, sunny canvases are enthusiastic in execution, heroic in scale while also expressing something of the rogue spirit of outsider art. Many of them are dedicated to such artists and musicians as Harry Smith, Frank Moore and James Brown, whose names are inscribed in coarse strokes upon the works. Martin’s paintings are underlain with such everyday detritus as stuck-on coins, vinyl records, banana skins, newspaper articles and slices of bread. Despite such rough, utterly profane surfaces, it is a spiritual tradition of abstraction that Martin’s work draws from: Native American folklore, religious mysticism, anthroposophist symbolism, the landscape painting of North American romanticism--and the great melting pot of New York City itself, where Martin has lived since 1975.

Published by Mitchell-Innes & Nash.Text by Bruce Hainley.

Chris Martin's paintings are investigations in color, form and texture, ranging from bold and graphic to gestural and expressionistic. He is deeply engaged with the history of abstraction, and many of his own paintings incorporate homages to artistic influences. Reviewing the works collected in this concise exhibition catalogue, The New York Times' Roberta Smith wrote, "It makes sense that Mr. Martin had his first solo show in 1988. Although he rightfully counts the painters Alfred Jensen and Forrest Bess among his inspirations, his style might be called 80s mongrel; a mélange of outtakes from Julian Schnabel, Keith Haring, Elizabeth Murray and Sigmar Polke. But he takes possession of all this by infusing it with his own sense of funky materiality, quasi-psychedelic color and hallucinatory light. Mainly he knows how to make a surface come to life with a fuss so minimal that it seems like showing off."